Sharon Van Etten to release new album ‘Are We There?’ in May

Van Etten appears inside this week’s NME, which is on newsstands or available digitally now. She features as part of a rundown of 100 albums to look forward to in 2014 containing exclusive studio reports and photos.

Speaking to NME about the new album, which will be the follow up to 2012’s ‘Tramp’, Van Etten reveals that she used instruments used by John Lennon and Patti Smith in the recording of the album. Having feared that her popularity was a product of collaborating with members of bigger acts such as Beirut and The National, the album will also be self-produced with guests turns kept to friends only. Guests on the album will include Torres’ Mackenzie Scott, Lower Dens’ Jana Hunter and Efterklang affiliate Peter Broderick.

“I decided I needed to prove to myself that it was my songwriting,” Van Etten said while promising “standard mid-tempo Sharon guitar ballads” for the record. Speaking about the sound of the album, she added: “My writing’s getting better and the arrangements are getting weirder, in a good way.”